How Pendulum Clocks Work

Have you ever looked inside a grandfather clock or a small mechanical alarm clock, seen all the gears and springs and thought, "Wow -- that's complicated!"? While clocks normally are fairly complicated, they do not have to be confusing or mysterious. In fact, as you learn how a clock works, you can see how clock designers faced and solved a number of interesting problems to create accurate timekeeping devices. In this article, we'll help you understand what makes clocks tick, so the next time you look inside one you can make sense of what's happening.

Let's get started by taking a look at the different parts of a pendulum clock.